When you walk into the Asian Flame kitchen, you’re greeted with the cozy, familiar sights and smells of home cooking. Using fresh ingredients is a must for Asian Flame owner May Vang, who, along with a small staff, prepares hundreds of meals each week for older adults. “Clients often tell me that they can’t get food like ours anywhere else. That warms my heart,” she says.
Asian Flame is a small catering business that specializes in serving older adults at adult day health centers throughout the Twin Cities metro area. May and her team prepare, package and deliver between 800-900 meals each week. She describes the meals as Asian fusion: stir fries and noodle dishes are popular, as are meals like khao poon, a red curry noodle soup.
Over the past year, May has been able to expand her business thanks to a grant she received from the Minnesota Department of Human Services. During the pandemic, she recalls reaching out to aging service providers to ask how she could support them while adult day centers were closed.
Eventually she connected with Diane Graham-Raff, an ElderCare Development Partnership coordinator at Trellis. The ElderCare Development Partnership (EDP) program provides technical assistance and grant application support to organizations and businesses serving older adults.
Diane suggested May apply for a GEAR (Grants, Equity, Access and Research) grant to support her business.
“May’s knowledge and drive to make good things happen impressed me the first time we spoke. I knew Asian Flame would be a perfect fit for a GEAR grant. The funds are intended to develop the capacity of organizations to serve older adults,” says Diane. “With all she had already achieved on her own, I could see that expanding Asian Flame’s capacity would be a great investment for the GEAR grant program.”
Diane supported May through the grant application process. May received a GEAR grant in 2023, which she used to modernize her kitchen. Asian Flame is now home to a walk-in cooler, a blast chiller and a state-of-the-art sealing machine. This makes it possible for May and her team to prepare hundreds of fresh meals and quickly chill and package them for weekly deliveries.
“My goal was to serve 100 people each week. I’m now serving about 150 people. I couldn’t have done this without Diane’s support. She’s always looking out for me,” says May.
“It’s been wonderful to see how Asian Flame has grown,” says Diane. “She is helping meet the need for Asian-specific meals for older adults in our community. I can’t wait to see what she does next.”
May hopes to partner with Metro Meals on Wheels in the near future, and has her eyes set on purchasing a delivery vehicle. She says her true passion is working with people: “The fact that I get to do that with food just tops it all off.”
Learn more about GEAR grants and Trellis’ ElderCare Development Partnership program.
